Montco Allows Kids' Lemonade Stand to Stay Open

After life dealt these kids a $500 fine, they kept making lemonade.

Four 10-year-olds who set up a lemonade stand a front yard near Congressional Country Club golf course, site of this year's U.S. Open, were warned by Montgomery County officials to shut down their lemonade stand on Thursday.

On Friday, in a compromise, parents say the county agreed to let the stand stay open, just a few feet away from its original location.

Neighborhood kids set up a pop-up tent at the corner of Country Club Drive and Persimmon Tree Road.  Thirsty golf fans had a chance to buy lemonade or other cold drinks for $2 a pop.  The kids and their parents said that half the proceeds would go to a children's charity.

The Montgomery County Department of Permitting said they were obstructing pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and wrote up the lemonade stand for operating without a license.  The offense carries a $500 fine.

"What happened to the entrepreneurial spirit of this country," one angry parent told NBC4's John Schriffen on Thursday, "this is the American dream."

Parents resolved not to move the stand, and to donate 100 percent of the sales to charity.

On Friday, parents said the county government relented, and allowed the stand to stay open. In a compromise, the tent got moved 100 feet down the road, away from the intersection.

"We're really happy today because the kids are thrilled to be back in business," said one of the mothers, "and the county said last night that they would not in their words 'hassle the kids' this weekend if they would just move their lemonade stand 100 feet down still on private property."

The kids and their parents planned on giving the money to a race to benefit pediatric cancer research.

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